Sunday Poetry: Gerard Rochford

Sky News from the Garden of Eden

( Iraq – 10th April 2003)



Soldiers break

through a hotel lounge

fingering death.



A girl sits with her family –

Innocents.



Her dress is thin

as this paper;

her terror as white.



She holds up her hands

like wheat to the scythe.

This gesture says:



We are nothing, spare us.

We will live unseen

beneath the body of a tank,

claim no sunlight,

drink rain, eat insects.



Not even her eyes have fire enough

to touch those terrible gods.



Within this year

her dress will be rags,

she will grow old,

while others gather silk

around their bellies,

deal in gold.



Perhaps she's already dead,

in camouflage of dust,

owning no grief - no grave,



no mark but this frail surrender

on my screen.



I switch off:

my tears leave nothing but salt.



Gerard Rochford

(This poem was published at War Poetry.)